Kathleen Sebelius apologized Wednesday for the disastrous launch of the Healthcare.gov website. "Hold me accountable for the debacle," Sebelius told a House committee. "I'm responsible."

Yes, she is responsible, and yes, Americans do hold her accountable. She should resign.

The secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services had ultimate responsibility for the planning and rollout of the site, where most Americans who have tried to enroll in the federal health care exchange since Oct. 1 have faced interminable delays, error messages and site crashes.

Sebelius' role was to ensure that top experts in such complex projects were hired not only to build the site but also to oversee and coordinate the work of the many contractors. This didn't happen.

Sebelius' defenders can fairly point to computer problems that plagued the launch of the Medicare prescription drug program in 2006. But this is what can't be excused: The Affordable Care Act gives Sebelius the discretion to begin and end enrollment on a schedule she determines, yet she said last week that "the law said the go-time was Oct. 1." Either she deliberately mischaracterized the law, or she didn't know how much authority it gave her.

Especially given new revelations that her own employees wrote a memo about their security concerns four days before the launch, it's unconscionable that she didn't delay the website's debut long enough to resolve the most serious problems and avert the disaster that has unfolded for nearly a month.